


נס גדול נשרף שם (A Great Miracle Burned There)

by Seiberwing



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Accidentally Helpful Gentiles, Canon Jewish Character, Fire, Gen, Gentiles Behaving Badly, Hanukkah, Historical Inaccuracy, Jewish Holidays, Judaism, Season/Series 01, Time Travel, google translate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 19:08:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13130142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seiberwing/pseuds/Seiberwing
Summary: Saving Christmas is so passé. In this holiday special, the Legends provide their usual brand of accidentally-broke-it-then-accidentally-fixed-it support to a more ancient winter festival.





	נס גדול נשרף שם (A Great Miracle Burned There)

**Author's Note:**

> Set somewhere in the middle of Season One, pre-Chronos and post-Hawkman's death. 
> 
> I am aware that much of the traditional Hannukah story is considered by most rabbis to be a combination of an oversimplified romanticization of a complicated historical event and outright fabrications constructed centuries after the event. I am also aware that this is the show Legends of Tomorrow, where most recently our heroes saved Christmas from Vikings worshipping a Tickle-Me-Elmo knockoff doll and a resurrected assassin being mind controlled by a psychic gorilla during the Vietnam War was knocked out with a frying pan by Sir Isaac Newton. Roll with it.
> 
> Also I'm sorry the title was done in Google Translate. I know enough Hebrew to pray and ask where the bathroom is. I did my best.

The being wreathed in flame hung in the sky like a miniature sun. It turned to the side, as if listening to an unseen voice and from his place at the front of the rebel army Judah could hear it mumble, ‘you want me to say what, Grey?’.

The armies of Antiochus paused in their tracks, staring up with open mouths at the vision above them. The being held its arms upraised as if in prayer and announced "SHEMA YISRAEL ADONAI." There was a pause. "ELOHEINU ADONAI EH-HAD." Another pause, another look aside before it repeated the final word, correcting the pronunciation of its guttural letter _chet_ with an emphatic, "E-KHH-AD."

More figures swept into the sky – one held aloft by great falcon’s wings, and one which seemed made of shining metal. 

“Oh, lord,” said the man next to Judah. He had a small beard, currently hidden with the rest of his face in the palm of one hand. 

The young man next to him—beautiful, like a woman, and with strangely pale eyes—pointed to the sky excitedly. “Yes! Yes, the lord! They are angels from the Lord! God is with us!”

He thumped the shoulders of the two men beside him, who went from seeming unimpressed by the display to muttering abrupt agreements that yes, those were definitely angels.

Judah raised his sword and shouted the battle cry that had led his fragile army to victory so many times before. "Who among the gods is like you, O God?" The call was echoed throughout the men around him, until the cheer echoed through the rocks of the high mountain. 

“Yeah!” the angel shouted back down again.

“Maccabees! Forward!”

As the army charged, Judah swore he could hear the angel mutter, “How am I supposed to know how Hebrew sounds? I didn't even go to _Christian_ Sunday school!"

\---

“Mick, no looting,” said Rip, in the resigned tone one would use on a constantly disobeying dog. Mick reluctantly pulled his hand back from stealing a bag off a fallen Seleucid soldier, while behind Rip Len palmed a ring from another corpse. Nothing like Mick for a good old-fashioned distraction

“I’ll be happy when we get back to a time that has decent shoes,” Mick grumbled as he rejoined the ragtag group of warriors trudging triumphant but weary through the negative-first century streets. Jax and Kendra were at the front of the group, surrounded by an adoring throng, with the rest of the Legends trudging along behind them.

“Not since the time of the prophets have there been such wonders!” gushed the man beside them. After the battle he had introduced himself as Simon, brother to the rebel leader Judah and a big long-time fan of the Almighty One. As he rambled his hands traced excited shapes in the air.

“Does this guy shut up?” Mick said.

“Fire and cold radiating like beams of light! Women warriors with alabaster skin! And now, angels lead us back to the Great Temple in Jerusalem!”

“Oh, lord,” repeated Rip.

“I thought angels were supposed to be pretty with little wings,” said Mick, fingers miming small fluttery objects. “Why’s everyone all over Firestorm’s di—”

“Mick, no.”

Simon shrugged, his hands never stopping their flurry of movement. “Angels can look like whatever God needs them to look like. The prophet Ezekiel had a vision of angels as flaming wheels within wheels, covered in eyes, forming a flying chariot.”

Len shot a sideways look at Rip. “Flying chariots with flaming wheels inside wheels abruptly appearing in the sky. That sounds suspiciously familiar. Have you seen anything like that before, Captain?”

The commander of the Waverider abruptly found reason to be somewhere else in the line.

\---

The Temple looked to Mick and Len more like a castle, with high walls enclosing an even higher tower held up by pillars and pure-white stone. As the little army walked up the street Simon’s smile began to fall, until they approached the open doors and a squealing pig ran out to greet them.

“The temple… in such a state?” Mournful whispers went up and down the line of warriors.

Jax waved his hands in a general appeasement gesture. “The Lord definitely forgives you. You were busy fighting a war and getting oppressed, God gets that this stuff happens.” 

Kendra added, “As Emissaries of the Lord we extend to you his blessing. Let the temple now be cleansed in his honor, and you shall be rewarded.”

“Get water and rags!” Judah shouted. “Cleanse the temple, restore the Holy of Holies!” 

As the militants scattered Rip slid up to his crew and hissed, “Time traveling rule number one, do not get assumed to be a deity by the resident peoples. Or agents of a deity.”

“In my first life I was already an agent of a deity,” Kendra said, her wings rustling as they folded outward. “Just not the one they think I am.”

Jax pushed forward. He'd separated from Stein, but that hadn't decreased his popularity with the Maccabees. “Look, this is the one time period where me and Kendra are getting more respect than the rest of you. Lemme enjoy this, okay?”

While the three of them debated chronotheology Mick and Len sidled in past the cleaning crews. 

“If the soldiers were in here the place is probably already looted,” Mick grumbled. 

Len flashed him a smirk. “Looted of what they think is valuable. Think how much little trinkets go for on the black market if they’re from the right century and location, and imagine how much we’ll get for a doorstop from the most famous temple in the world.”

“Huh. Hadn’t thought about that.” That was why he hung out with Len. Mick looked at situations head-on, Len thought circles around them. It made a nice balance.

As they went further into the temple, they found Simon kneeling on the floor in front of an empty bronze bowl. He was clutching his hands to his chest, body trembling with emotion. When they got closer Mick could hear that he was crying.

“What’s your deal?” Mick asked, poking Simon with one foot. “You got your temple back, you kicked some ass. Just needs a little Windex or some shit.”

Mick had to bend down to hear the agonized whisper of “The oil is gone. The consecrated oil. For the lamps, for the Ner Tamid, the eternal light.” His hands parted and Mick saw he was cradling a tiny jar like it was his firstborn child. “There’s only one left. It’ll burn for less than a day, and then nothing. There’s no point without the lamps.”

“So? Just get more.”

“It’ll take days to make more. We can’t consecrate the temple without lighting the lamps. They’re supposed to keep burning, no matter what…and now they’re out.”

“I haven’t seen a guy this upset about a lack of fire since you, Mick,” said Len, already wandering the room to see if anything interesting could be pried off the walls. Mick was left standing awkwardly next to a man who’d spent the last two hours praising them so passionately he should have been buying them dinner first.

“How long’s it take to make oil?” Mick asked, realizing he had no idea where oil came from. Olives, probably. Maybe they made it in a vat like wine or something.

“At least a week,” the man sobbed. “There’s no point without the lights.”

Mick took a quick look over his shoulder to make sure Mommy Rip wasn’t spying on him. Ah, hell with it.

He plucked the jar from the man’s hands, ignoring his futile grabbing to get it back. Simon let out a shriek as Mick dumped half the oil out on the floor, reaching out to catch it with cupped and shaking hands.

“That’s the last we have! What are you doing?”

“Something I shouldn’t. As usual.”

Mick hiked up his robe, flashing a burn-scared thigh. The Maccabee watched in shocked silence as Mick took out his heat gun, unscrewed the fuel container and tucked it under his arm so he could fill the jar with Flash’s nerd buddy’s special blend.

“What are you doing? You’ll contaminate it!” Simon tried to grab him, but couldn’t manage it without dropping the oil in his hands.

“You want this thing to burn or not?” Mick swirled the jar a few times, then dribbled a few droplets into the bronze bowl. 

“Mick? Are you screwing with the locals again?” called Len from the back of the chamber.

“No, I’m trying to get them to shut up.” Mick closed up the fuel tank again. He smacked the heat gun's fuel cap down and primed the pump, then pulled the trigger. The fueled flared into brilliant flames that left Mick seeing spots.

"Oh God of my Ancestors..." The oil in his palms poured out onto the floor at Simon’s feet. His hands reached out until they felt the warmth of the fire and its light flickered against his greasy fingertips.

“There,” Mick said with a satisfied grunt. He held the little jar out to the man, who clutched it tightly in slick hands. “Don’t dump it all in at once. That should last you…I dunno, maybe seven days? Eight?”

“I would say you were lying, but I have seen wonders on this day. Your godly acts will be written into the stories of our people.” Simon was nearly crying again. 

“Hey, leave me out of it. I don’t really do godly acts.” Mick stared at the fire, blazing tall and proud. Despite the chipped walls and pig residue, it seemed to lend the place a new dignity. “If anyone asks, just, uh…say a great miracle happened here or something.” Mick shrugged. “Enjoy your fire.”

\---

A solemn-faced child followed Mick out of the temple. Mick found his hand being tugged and a small, clay object being pressed into his hand. 

“The hell’s this?” he asked. It looked like a weird top and Mick scowled at it for being confusing.

“I made it.” The child’s adorable eyes were full of sweetness and hope, which made Mick want to crush the toy on general principle.

“And why should I want it?” he growled.

“It’s my lucky one. I win every game with it.” The boy’s smile revealed missing baby teeth. “I want you to have it. I saw how you set all those soldiers on fire.” The smile grew wider. “I like fire.”

“My friend thinks it’s great,” Len interjected, slipping in before Mick could mangle the tiny boy’s dreams. “Why don’t you go help the others clean up?”

“Black market historical artifacts,” Len hissed as the child happily wandered off. “Whatever this thing is, it’s probably worth a fortune two thousand years from here.”

Mick’s hand clamped shut around the little clay nonsense. “My fire, my artifact,” he insisted.

“Sure, Mick. Sure.”

\---

“This is like a dream come true. As a child I fantasized about fighting with the Maccabees, standing up against tyranny with some of Judaism’s greatest heroes, and now I’ve had the chance to meet them face to face!”

Stein had been going on for what felt like ten straight minutes. The moment he’d gotten back he’d had Gideon synthesize up an entire Hannukah spread, from candles in a two foot high menorah (which Mick appreciated) to fancy fried hashbrowns with sour cream on them (which Mick wasn’t sure how to feel about). Time travel permitted no holiday calendars, and by Stein’s own chronology it had been a bare seven months since Christmas, but he’d decided that it was Hannukah now and nobody had the courage to stop him.

“So what is it?” Mick asked the local nerd.

“Not sure. I saw it in a holiday special once but I forget what it’s supposed to symbolize. Maybe how God has a lot of different sides?” Ray said, rolling the stem of the child's toy between his fingertips.

Stein put a pause on his ramble as he finally noticed the existence of other people. “It’s a dreidel,” he said, in that snooty ‘you should know this already’ voice that always gave Mick middle school English class flashbacks. “It’s used in a traditional Hannukah game. It has—oh, that’s interesting, this one’s blank. I’ll have to have Gideon make a new one.” He took it from Ray’s fingers and set it spinning on the table.

“So what’s the point of it?” Mick grunted as the top wobbled, then finally stopped and fell over. 

“Traditionally, each side has a Hebrew letter on it.” Stein was moving on to ‘lecturer voice’, which gave Mick flashbacks to middle school science class—much like science class, the only upside of ‘lecturer voice’ was that it occasionally led to something being on fire. “ _Nun_ , _gimel_ , _hey_ , and _shin_ , standing in for _Nes Gadol Haya Sham_ , roughly translating to ‘A Great Miracle Happened There’. Of course in Israel the letter _shin_ is replaced with a _pey_ , to make it _Nes Gadol Haya Poh_ , translating instead to ‘A Great Miracle Happened Here’. It references the supposed miracle of a single, tiny jar oil for the temple lamps lasting eight days instead of one—a complete myth, obviously, but the symbolism of the myth is truly inspiring.”

“Uh huh,” said Mick, who was staring resolutely at anywhere but Stein. At the back of the room, Len pressed the side of his first to his lips to hide a smirk.

Stein spun the top again. The tiny act seemed to give him as much joy as Mick got from a bonfire. “The game itself is a simple game of chance, as each side offers a different outcome. Children gamble—"

Len stepped up behind Mick, one hand on Mick’s shoulder. “Gambling? I can get behind gambling,” he said, smirking. “Why don’t you show us how to play?”

Stein nearly squealed with joy. “Yes! Ah! I haven’t played in years, but—” He dashed off to the synthesizer bay before he could even finish his own sentence. 

“Gotta love that symbolism,” Len purred. Mick threw back another swig of beer as his partner sat down beside him in a sprawl.

“Shut the hell up, Snart.”

\---

“Gideon. Did you make a second dreidel for Snart?”

“It wasn’t on the disapproved list for synthesized items, Professor Stein.”

“This is a _children’s_ game. We are gambling for _chocolate coins_. Who plays dreidel with a loaded top?”

“People who play to win. Pay up, old man.”)

**Author's Note:**

> Jax-by-way-of-Stein is reciting the S'hma, one of Judaism's holiest and most important short prayers. If you aren't familiar with it, the letter ח ( _chet_ ) in the final word has no direct English alphabet correlation and is best pronounced like you're trying to cough up a hairball, so it's a little troublesome.


End file.
